Gender Bias

• Alpha bias


  • when research exaggerates the differences between men and women, which often ends up devaluing women.

  eg. Freud - Oedipus complex leads to men having stronger superegos than women.
• Beta Bias


  • when research minimises the differences between the sexes, suggesting behaviour for one sex is universal

  eg. Zimbardo's study has never been replicated on women, Herasty and women having larger Broca's area.
• Androcentrism 


  • when research is male centred which takes male behaviour as normal which leads to women's behaviour being pathologised.

  eg. Kohlberg and moral development - based stages of moral development around male moral reasoning.
• Universality - can the characteristic /behaviour be applied to all regardless of environmentalk factors
• Gender biased research could wrongly give scientific justification to negative stereotypes. This can deny men or women opportunities in the workplaces potentially affecting public policy. For example, Bowlby's theory of monotropy makes women feel guilty for returning to work and leaving their baby during the critical period so women won't return to work and earn money. Therefore, gender bias is not a methodological problem but has damaging consequences which affect the prospect of women.
• Gender bias is common in psychology because sexism within the research process is too common as there is too few women in the senior level of research meaning questions to tackle stereotypes aren't asked. Although peer review process occurs male researchers are more likely to have their research published. Therefore, psychology is guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism that creates bias in theory and research.
• To overcome androcentrism we must take a feminist perspective. Feminist psychology says that differences psychologically arise from biological explanations of behaviour but socially determined stereotypes have a far greater contribution to differences.For example, Gilligan found women were care orientation whereas men favoured justice orientation in terms of morality showing men and women are different but neither is better(Kohlberg).Therefore, feminist psychology aims to stop imbalances in theory/research in psychology by having women in the research and stop comparisons between men+women.